BI-LO was an American supermarket chain owned by Southeastern Grocers, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. In the time of the banner’s elimination, supermarkets under the BI-LO brand were operated in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. History In 1961, Frank Outlaw, a former Winn-Dixie executive, bought four Greenville, S.C. grocery stores from the chain Wrenn and Syracuse, to create the Wrenn & Outlaw chain. The company was officially named BI-LO in 1963 after Outlaw conducted an employee store-naming contest to develop the "brand." His secretary, Edna Plumblee, won the contest by submitting the name "BI-LO." BI-LO was sold to Ahold, a Dutch retail food conglomerate, in 1977. In 1994, Ahold purchased Red Food Stores, Inc. and merged its locations (around 55 of them) in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee into BI-LO the following year. In 2001, Ahold purchased the Birmingham, Alabama based Bruno's Supermarkets chain and combined its operations with BI-LO. In 1998, the company sponsored the construction of the BI-LO Center, now named the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina. In June 2001, BI-LO debuted their discount grocery format, FoodSmart in Camden, South Carolina. A month later, BI-LO purchased eight Harris Teeter grocery stores in South Carolina and converted those stores to either BI-LO or the FoodSmart formats. In 2003, BI-LO invested in redesigning its store layout to attract high end customers. The result was the new Super BI-LO concept of a larger store layout featuring a greater selection of healthier foods, specialty foods, and organic foods. The company opened new Super BI-LO branded stores as well as remodeled older stores in affluent neighborhoods during this redesign period. In 2005, Ahold sold BI-LO/Bruno's to Lone Star Funds. In order to concentrate on renovating older stores, building new ones, and investing in newer information technology, the new owners sold off 104 BI-LO, FoodSmart, Bruno's, Food Fair, and Food World stores in areas where the chain did not have significant market penetration. They also sold off three BI-LO/Bruno's distribution centers to grocery wholesaler, C&S Wholesale Grocers who converted some of the stores to Southern Family Markets. Included in the sell-off were all stores in the Knoxville, TN, area which nearly all were immediately occupied by Food City stores. As of 2010, one location in the area has not been leased to any business in five years, in part due to Food City already owning a former Winn-Dixie location just a short